Archive for December, 2007

LED Beam shots

Here are some pictures of my various bike lights for comparison.

The back yard at 8:30 pm. All pictures were taken with a Canon XTi, 17-40 F4 Lens, ISO 100, Manual mode, and exposure for 2 seconds on a tripod. Focus was set at infinity. I was kind of lazy and didn’t use the best tripod and didn’t use a remote shutter release so the pictures are not that sharp.

Here is a point of reference.

Cutter LED modified light.

NiteRider Enduro HID

NiteRider 15Watt Halogen Wide Beam

NiteRider 15Watt Halogen StandardBeam

In case you’re interested in modifying your own lights, here’s the link to where I ordered them from: http://www.cutter.com.au/products.php?cat=41 Just be aware that LEDs get HOT and need cooling so if your housing isn’t aluminum I wouldn’t try this mod.

MR-11 LED Bike light upgrade

You can’t get geeker than this… I had an old Halogen Bike like I got Performance many years ago that I kept around as my loaner set of lights. It wasn’t the best but it got the job done. A few night rides ago the battery died so I started to see what I could do to bring it back to life.

I found this “kit” which included the lens, the LED’s, a heatsink, and a driver board from a reseller in Australia. The kit is design to be a drop-in replace for common halogen MR-11 bulbs found in bike lights. It’s similar in design to the Niterider TriNewts. It’s basically three Cree LEDs with a lens to focus the beam.

It wasn’t that easy as a drop in replacement, but if you’re handy with a soldering iron and know a little about electronics it can be completed in a few hours. Basic steps, remove the old MR-11 bulb, cut the wires, wire the power leads to the driver board, then attach wires to the LEDs. Sounds simple, but the parts are so small you need a really good soldering iron and steady hands.

It’s raining or I would take some beam shots, but I will say that’s it’s almost as bright as my Niterider Enduro HID light. The beam on the HID is narrower, but I wanted this to be my handlebar light so a wide beam was actually what I wanted. My little light project turned out a lot better than I expected. The best part is that I can use any type of battery between 6 to 11 volts and get the exact same brightness do to the “boost” abilities of the driver board. The picture is of my 6 AA batteries in an old water bottle. I also have another bottle wired up that will accept 7.2 – 8.4 volt RC/AirSoft batteries. No more paying high prices for replacement bike light batteries.

I’ll post more about the light as soon as the weather gets better and I can actually do a night ride.

iHome2Go Cycler – Bicycle Speaker for the iPod

 This speaker rocks! This is a really cool iPod speaker system. I’ve been wanting to get something like this for a while for listening to the iPod without headphones. I have currently have the JBL On Stage speaker for my desk but not something that is portable and runs on batteries.

My first impression about it was that it was made very well and shouldn’t have a problem withstanding a MTB bike ride. It’s a single speaker, but it still sounds great. The speaker system itself is pretty simple, a speaker, some batteries to power the speaker, and the iPod link. The remote is like a small hockey puck and has some great range, I was able to control the speaker from about 50 feet away in my house.

I wish the speaker housing had some controls on it so I don’t have to have the remote puck to control to volume and song selection but I can live with that. I just don’t feel like having another device on my handlebars, so on the first ride it ended up in my pocket. The only issue I had with it is with my bike’s frame size, I ride a 16″ frame so the speaker can barely fit inside the main triangle. As you can see from the picture it has adapters to fit my 30Gb iPod Video and my 1st Gen iPod Nano, it has another adapter for an iPod mini, I think. (I don’t own one of those.) Not shown, it also comes with a cage to mount on your bike, but any water bottle cage should also work. It also has an AC adapter that when plugged in will also charge the iPod.

It’s called the Cycler but I think I will get some great use out of it as a great portable iPod speaker. I used it this weekend outside while I was washing my car.Â

Embassador to the next generation

RL’s daughter, Brianna made a compelling video about how she can make a difference by riding her bike to school. She has won First Place on the PTA Reflections program at her school and now she moves on to the next level of judging. I would like to wish her good luck and kudos on her video.

MountainBikeRidersTV.com

This site will feature all of our videos from Interbike, Sea Otter, video reviews, videos of our rides, RL’s Tech tips, how to’s and product releases.

So don’t fear the writer’s strike, check out www.mtnbikeridersTV.com!!